


hand across my heartbeat

by finkpishnets



Category: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (TV)
Genre: Best Friends, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8883829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finkpishnets/pseuds/finkpishnets
Summary: “It’s so good to see you, Will,” she says and isn’t surprised by how overwhelming the truth of it feels.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kereia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kereia/gifts).



> Hi there, dear recipient! So, I hope you don't mind, but I went with the Alice/Will part of your prompt. This is set in Storybrooke some vague time post Season 4 of OUaT, though there's nothing really mentioned that we didn't see in Wonderland itself. It's basically my urge to right the wrongs done to Will Scarlet who damn well deserves his happy ending, and also to let Alice/Will happen without disregarding Alice/Cyrus or Will/Ana (though OUaT did a good job of that one on their own). 
> 
> (Sidenote: I didn't tick the 'Major Character Death' tag because I don't discuss it, but Alice and Cyrus' long life together is mentioned, along with his passing. I promise I haven't written you something sad.)
> 
> Happy Yuletide, and I hope you enjoy! ♥︎

 

 

**~**

 

 

Alice falls asleep in her own bed, surrounded by family. She falls asleep with the ache of age in her bones and the ring Cyrus slipped on her finger so long ago glinting in the early morning light; the memory of sitting by this same bed not two years gone and echoing his fading smile that sang of adventure and love and _completeness_.

Alice falls asleep.

And then she wakes up.

 

 

**~**

 

 

It takes her a moment to make sense of where she is, and when she does it’s with the surprise of a suddenly-remembered dream. She knows this place, knows the dress she’s wearing and the strength of being young, and she knows the man staring at her with shock in his eyes and blood seeping from the wound at his side.

She knows the feel of a blade in her hand, and muscle-memory kicks in before she’s fully herself, taking out three of the closest attackers and leaving the rest to the people in leather jackets who seem a less direct threat.

The man stumbles, reaching for her with hesitant fingers as though afraid she’ll turn to smoke in his grasp.

“Bloody hell,” he says as his hand curls around her arm.

“ _Will_ ,” she says, and catches him as he falls.

 

 

**~**

 

 

Will doesn’t wake for three days.

The hospital he’s taken to seems pleasant enough, bright and sterile and nothing like the nightmares that never quite faded with time. People keep trying to _talk_ to her, though, and her manners wear thin when the questions keep coming without any hint of an explanation.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she says eventually to the man who introduced himself as ‘Sheriff’ and his hovering wife, “but unless you’re accusing Will or I of some unbeknown crime, I really don’t think I need to tell you _anything_. Now, if you’ll excuse us, the doctor says that Will needs _rest_.”

She stares at them pointedly and they take the hint, leaving with expressions of barely hidden distrust. Alice doesn’t care. She’s still trying to dissect the past few days, and it’s…overwhelming at best.

( _Too much_ , her head says, and she takes a deep breath and smoothes Will’s brow, focusing on the beat of his heart — still firmly in his chest — and tries not to dwell.

She’s alive.

Will’s alive.

Those two things have always mattered first and foremost.)

 

 

**~**

 

 

“You know, your nose still does that crinkly thing when you sleep,” Will says, and Alice almost falls out of her chair.

“Will,” she says, reaching for him with shaking hands. “ _Will_.”

“Hey,” he says, rubbing her back and barely flinching against her weight. The guilt of hurting him’s overridden by the need to make sure he’s whole and healthy and _here_ , and she holds him tight, pressing her nose against the curve of his neck and feeling his heartbeat against her cheek. “Alice,” he says, and it’s with a reverence she’s never known what she’s done to deserve. “What are you doing here? _How_ are you here?”

“I don’t know,” she says, forcing herself to put some semblance of space between them. “I really don’t. One minute I was…Well, one minute I was back in England — _my_ England — and then I was _here_ , with you.”

“Cyrus’ll be worried sick,” Will says, and a bittersweet laugh catches in Alice’s throat.

“Oh Will,” she says, “Cyrus is gone.”

Will blinks and then catches her hand in his own. “Oh,” he says. “Oh Alice, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she says, and wonders at how she’s survived so many years without him. “He lived a full life.”

Will frowns, seemingly unsure of what to say, and Alice finds herself comforted by his confusion.

(Where Will’s concerned, she’s never been alone.)

“ _I_ lived a full life,” she says, and the words taste strange on her tongue. “So unless this town of yours is a very unusual depiction of Heaven or Hell, I’m going to have to throw my hands up and go with magic. It’s _always_ magic.”

“True enough,” Will says, but he’s still watching her with cautious eyes. “It’s not been that long for me. Well, I don’t think it has. The curses around here don’t half mess with a guy’s sense of time.”

“Is—” Alice starts, but Will cuts her off before the words even begin to take shape.

“No,” he says. “No.”

She knows the creases of his eyes and the pull of his mouth and doesn’t say _‘I’m sorry’_ but knows he hears it anyway. 

“So,” he says when the moment’s dragged just a fraction too long, “when are you breaking me out of this joint?”

Alice smiles and squeezes his hand. “You only had to ask.”

 

 

**~**

 

 

Will’s flat doesn’t have a spare room but it does have a sofa that pulls out, and Alice fights him until he lets her take it instead of the bed, staring at the point of his shirt where the thick, white bandages sit underneath until he caves with a moan about how ‘bloody stubborn’ she is.

It’s the sort of victory she revelled in once upon a time, and she smiles and sets about learning how the appliances in his kitchen work and judging the severe lack of tea in his cupboards.

Her memories of Wonderland have always been the clearest. She’d expected them to fade somewhat with time, snippets coming back with a trigger but otherwise pushed aside to make way for new ones, but it had never happened. She remembers the colours and the sounds and the smells as if she’s only just stepped away, and now she’s here with Will, she can feel that same swell of emotions — friendship and devotion and safety and comfort — that kept them fighting for and with each other against everything thrown their way. 

There’s not so many decades between her world and his anymore, but it should be enough to jar her at the least. That it doesn’t could be a testament to her own adventurous tendencies, to the fact this place isn’t entirely unfamiliar, or the fact that she’s here with Will and they’ve proven time and time again that together they can face anything. Likely, it’s all of the above. 

Still.

She makes coffee and sticks a note to the refrigerator telling him to buy tea.

 

 

**~**

 

 

In the morning, Will takes her to breakfast and pretends he doesn’t notice all the curious stares. He orders stacks of pancakes and bacon and laughs at Alice’s face when she first tries maple syrup, and Alice has died and awoken and still feels at home when he leans back and folds his arms over his chest, eyes glittering with amusement.

“It’s so good to see you, Will,” she says and isn’t surprised by how overwhelming the truth of it feels.

Will’s smile lights up the room and she offers her hand when he reaches for it, fingers sticky with syrup. “Alice,” he says, “you don’t even _know—_ ”

She presses her ankle to his under the table, another point of contact, and watches a little of the loneliness drain from his shoulders.

 

 

**~**

 

 

“Tell me,” Will says later, sprawled out on a park bench, face tilted toward the sun.

Alice’s boots lie abandoned on the ground, her toes tucked beneath his thigh, and the break in the comfortable silence throws her off balance for a moment.

“Tell you what?”

His smile is a little sad, a little yearning, and Alice’s heart skips a beat for no reason.

“Tell me everything I missed,” he says, and oh.

_Oh._

“All right,” she says, and begins to untangle the threads of a life well lived.

 

 

**~**

 

 

When Will catches her up on his life it’s over beer and pizza, curled up in front of the television in borrowed clothes that slip from her collarbone and smell of Will’s soap.

She lets silent tears fall at the despair in his voice and runs gentle fingers through his hair when he lays his head against her shoulder, a thousand regrets passing by as she wishes she could have been there to share his joy and heartache and pain and knowing that wishes aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

They fall asleep tangled together, the television a faint hum of voices in the background.

Alice dreams of Wonderland, of mushrooms and caterpillars and marshmallow swamps, and behind her eyelids she takes Will’s hand and their adventures last a lifetime.

 

 

**~**

 

 

Storybrooke is no Wonderland, but it still comes with it’s own dose of danger. There’s an itch under Alice’s skin at the thought of throwing herself into the fray, but it’s been soothed into something bearable with the cover of time, and besides, Will’s still healing and she won’t put him at risk.

It doesn’t matter; True Love saves the day and everyone rejoices until the next week, and Alice has to wonder if that’s how she sounded, back on her search for Cyrus, cringing a little even as she refuses to regret a moment.

She knows what they’re talking about, after all. She’s experienced True Love, as has Will, and there’s no real fault to their logic. Alice and Cyrus had each other. Will and Ana had each other. True love with all the pain and happiness and trials that came with it.

At least the people of Storybrooke understand that it doesn’t only take one form. She does wonder, though, if Will’s ever realised that if circumstances had ever required it, her kiss would have worked on him just as his would for her.

Cyrus was her True Love, and Will is her True Love, and assuming romance is _more_ than friendship has always seemed astoundingly ridiculous to Alice. She’s never needed to question whether you can have more than one True Love in your life because she’s always known it.

(Now though—

Now though she thinks _maybe_ …

She’s used to change, she just normally sees it coming earlier.)

 

 

**~**

 

 

They go shopping for clothes (and, oh, does Alice miss some parts of Wonderland dearly) and Will rolls his eyes and carries her bags and takes her arm as they walk down the street, and Alice contemplates the workings of the universe until a shelf of antique weapons catches her eye and Will laughs at her for ten minutes straight.

“What?” she says. “They’re pretty.”

“Only you, Alice,” he says, and buys her a new dagger anyway.

 

 

**~**

 

 

They haven’t bothered with the pull-out sofa since Will’s health returned; they’ve always taken comfort in each other’s proximity, and the mattress is plenty big enough for the two of them even if they weren’t used to the lack of personal space.

Besides, it helps when Will can’t sleep and they talk and talk until her eyelids grow heavy, and it helps when she wakes confused by her surroundings and the lightness in her joints. The curve of Will’s palm fits perfectly against her hip, and Alice presses her fingertips over the heart of a man that’s not her husband but is her _Will_ , and doesn’t feel as out of sorts as she supposes she ought.

The scariest part of all this is how normal is feels.

“You don’t think this is dark magic do you?” she asks one night, the streetlamp outside the window illuminating the shadows on Will’s face. He’s wearing a hooded sweatshirt against the chill and Alice has the sheets pulled up to her chin.

“Nah,” he says, shifting until he’s facing her. “I thought it might be the wish at first. You know, when you wished that if I died you’d die, but—”

“But that would have ended with the curse,” she finishes, and Will nods. “So then _how?_ ”

Will watches her for a while, soft and sleepy and full of heart. “Does it matter?” he says eventually. “Honestly, Alice, at this point I think you’re about the only good thing the universe has ever given me, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Oh,” she breathes, and isn’t sure why it’s a surprise. She _knows_. Of course she knows. She’s felt the same way about him since he went by Knave and trusted his heart in her hands, and maybe that’s why she’s not scared. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t matter that she’s young and alive again in a town far away from the world she knew. Maybe it’s as simple as the universe tugging them back to the place they belong. “No,” she says, and realises she means it, “I don’t suppose it matters at all.”

 

 

**~**

 

 

“I’m fed up with the whole True Love thing,” Will says one day as they watch another cheer light up the diner after a curse lifted and battle won. They’re sat outside, enjoying the welcome relief of a warm day and eating ice-cream sundaes with half-a-dozen toppings just because they can. “You’d think they’d be used to it by now, what with it coming in handy at least once a week and all.”

The sleeves of Will’s shirt are pushed up to his elbows and there’s chocolate at the corner of his mouth.

“Well, it does work,” Alice says, waving her spoon at him.

“Yeah,” he says, stealing a cherry from her glass with a cheeky grin, “but now it’s just _boring_.”

“What about us?” Alice says before she can help herself, and then wonders if she’ll ever stop underestimating Will when he just shakes his head, smile softening.

“Sure, but I wouldn’t want to share your heart, Alice. I like it exactly as it is.” He reaches for another cherry and she uses her spoon to block him, laughing when she realises he’s stolen one with his other hand anyway. “Besides,” he says, flicking the stem at her, “magic didn’t make us _us_. We did. We chose each other, for better or worse, and I don’t regret a bloody minute of it.”

“You’re my _best friend_ ,” she says, and it’s the most honest truth she can speak, and isn’t arbitrary, not to them.

“And you’re mine,” he says, eyes warm.

“I’m afraid I might have also fallen a little bit _in_ love with you, though,” she says, and feels the flush on her cheeks and the lightness in her heart. “Just so you know.”

“Just a little bit?” he says, and Alice throws back her head and laughs.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” she says when she feels so happy she may burst. “If that’s all right?”

Will nods enthusiastically and his spoon clatters to the ground, and Alice is still smiling when she leans forward and meets him halfway.

The table digs into her thighs, there’s bound to be ice-cream on her dress, and as first kisses go it’s messy and awkward and ridiculous. Will’s laugh tastes of chocolate against her lips, and his fingers are gentle as they tuck her hair back behind her ear, and Alice wants to never stop kissing him like this, ever, ever, ever.

She still doesn’t understand how this came to be, isn’t sure she ever will, but she doubts she’ll ever find it in herself to care.

She lived a full and glorious life with Cyrus, and now the universe is giving her — not a second chance but a second gift — and it’s more than she could ever have dared hope for, more than she knew her heart was big enough to want, and yet, when she stops and thinks about it, perfectly and completely understandable.

Perfectly and completely _them_.

“Hiya, Alice,” Will says when they part, pressing his forehead to hers and looking as content and overwhelmed and happy as she feels.

_I’m your happily ever after,_ she thinks, _and you’re my happily ever after again._

“Hiya, Will,” she says instead, young and awake and wonderfully, _desperately_ , in love.

When she kisses him again, it feels like a new chapter.

 

 

**~**

 

 


End file.
